The Conduit: Chapter 12

A storm with eighty-mile-an-hour winds whipped into the cavern, rustling the tents at basecamp and keeping their occupants from getting much sleep. Jonas sat at a computer watching the images from the drone flights over the barrier around the second structure inside the mountain. The second structure was the mystery.

It bore a resemblance to multiple designs from different parts of the world, as if the architecture from thousands of years ago was cobbled together by the same designers. This was hardly cobbled, with incredibly smooth lines and precision construction holding it together through the millennia. The drone pilots had done well. Jonas could see the entirety of the structure and watched a run through the hidden fortress like a walk through a game design.

It astounded him how the stones were cut. There was an almost laser-like precision to the place, something he’d only seen at the great pyramids in Egypt. He pulled the reports from the lab examination of the samples. Staring at the carbon dating report, Jonas knew there weren’t humans on Earth constructing shelters with such precision that long ago. Twelve thousand to fourteen thousand years old. It was impossible, even though he was looking at it.

As the drone turned inward, entering a chamber in the deepest part of the mountain structure, Jonas anxiously stood in his tent, his heart excitedly pounding. The chamber resembled a long corridor, and on each side were the ancient equivalent of cell doors. It was a prison, thought Jonas. They were investigating a place meant to lock people up.

“Jesus,” he mumbled to himself.

Jonas grabbed his coat and walked out of his tent. He hurried to the closest tent, shaking the flap at the entry.

“Anu, it’s Jonas,” announced Jonas.

The resolve to catch some sleep during the storm wasn’t lost on Anu, and she barely opened her eyes in the middle of the noisy encampment. The winds howled outside, and the faint voice of Jonas calling her name told her she needed to get up. She put her coat around her, forgetting where she was for a moment, and stumbled to the front of her tent.

“Jonas,” she sighed. “Why are you here? You could be catching some sleep.”

“You’ll be glad I didn’t,” he excitedly told her colleague. “Come with me, I have something to show you.”

Jonas hurried back to his tent, forgetting to see if Anu followed. He’d moved quickly compared to the barely awake colleague he had awakened. Once she was there, he pointed at the screen like an excited teenager.

“Look what I found!” exclaimed Jonas.

Anu’s eyes locked on the frozen image of the prison cell chamber. She pressed the play icon, letting the footage continue as she felt her heart begin to speed up. If this were real, Jonas and she had discovered something impossible. It would be the first example of a jail in human history, but who built it?

“I don’t know,” smiled Jonas. “But…”

“We’re going to find out, aren’t we.”

Jonas told her they’d be going over the wall as soon as the storm subsided. He looked ready to scale the wall, even with the winds whipping in and out of the cavern. She wasn’t as excited as he was, however. She moved an icon, reversing the video. Something stuck out, and she found it on Jonas’s screen.

“Jonas, look,” she suggested, pointing to one of the cell doors.

“Yeah, so,” he shrugged.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that only one of the doors is partially opened?”

Jonas knelt next to the computer, looking closer at the screen. He’d missed the open door in the eons-old prison. Why was it the only door that was opened, he wondered. Looking back at his colleague, Jonas was perplexed. His curiosity was no less, but the thought occurred to him, if someone escaped, where are all the guards, and who, or what, got out of their prison?

“I’m glad you see it too,” admitted Anu. “What if something was inside?”

Max and Hanson Morrow worked on the exterior walks and continued through the night. They positioned fog lights around the walks, aiming them at the water at an angle capable of lighting up anything on close approach. Hanson wondered if it was such a good idea to light up one of the world’s most secretive facilities, but Max told him he’d worry about it after they assured the crew and staff were now safe.

After seven in the morning, they finally finished, and Max still had a session planned with Jane. He told Han to finish the last three lights and to call it a day. Max returned to the command center, and after briefly checking on the daily activities, made his way to the security lift that would take him to the detention level. He was tired enough that the pressurization going into the deep was noticeable. Max pinched his nose and blew, trying to fight the pain of his ears popping in his head.

When he stepped out of the lift, Doctor Reimers was going through security. One of his men greeted him as Max began going through the scanners, logging into the detention center. When he finished, he responded to Susan’s comment about him looking like shit. Of course, he thought, I’ve been up since five in the morning yesterday.

“Gee, thanks doc. Your bedside manner is a little less friendly today,” he commented.

“Sorry, I didn’t sleep much,” she admitted.

It was going around, thought Jonas. He and Han hadn’t slept as they worked on providing more light around the outer decks at night. Susan hadn’t slept. Were they all working too much?

“No,” she sighed. “I’ve been having weird dreams. Every night it’s the same thing. There’s a disaster and we’re trying to get off of the station before it goes under. The entire support system fails, and the upper three levels end up sinking into the ocean, entombing those on the lower decks in their place. Each time, I die the same way.”

“When did that start?” asked Max.

Susan thought about it. She hadn't dreamt of the station going under until about ten days ago.

“Ten days or so, maybe a little less. But it’s been a nightly thing.”

Max thought she’d say he was crazy, but that was about the time when the Nautilus class sub arrived with Jane. It was almost the same time he began having encounters with one of the women from the Oceanic, although he knew not who. There was enough weirdness then that it stopped Max from dismissing things out of hand.

“About the same time, I started having a visitor. She seduced me, well, seduces me whenever she comes to my suite,” explained Max.

“I guess that makes you lucky,” laughed Susan. “I haven’t been laid since I got to this place.”

Susan playfully punched Max in the shoulder, telling him to act more like one of the boys sometimes and let her get a vicarious thrill from his story. She tried to get him to give her details, but Max couldn’t describe the unreal encounters he’d had with his mystery woman.

“So, who is she?”

He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know. After looking through the files on everybody assigned to the Oceanic, Max hadn’t found a match to the woman in his nights. It was something he didn’t understand.

“How do you know she’s real?”

“What do you mean?” asked Max.

“Maybe you’re dreaming too,” suggested Susan. “Have you considered it’s not real?”

Until now, he’d not told anyone about the woman or the nocturnal fantasy encounters he’d enjoyed with the nubile young lady. As they walked to the detention center, he began to question whether they were dreams or not. If Susan was right, then his strange dreams started about the same time hers had.

“Has anyone else told you they were having trouble sleeping because of strange happenings at night, or bizarre dreams?”

As a doctor, she couldn’t tell him if anyone had. The whole doctor’s patient confidentiality thing was pretty important and could get her thrown out of the medical profession. Susan looked at him and shook her head. Up to now, she hadn’t had anyone admit to it, but they might not. Weird dreams weren’t exactly a reason to run to the infirmary.

Walking into the detention center, Max checked in at the control room. The men were having breakfast as they watched Jane in her cell. Each reported that there was nothing unusual about their shift so far. As Max stood in the control center, hearing the men brief him on the first hour of their shift, he looked up the screen as an eerie feeling overtook him.

“Do you see that?”

The men looked up at the screen, unsure of what they were supposed to see. Susan, however, saw exactly what Max was looking at.

“What’s she staring so intently at?”

“I think it’s me,” Max thought out loud.

Jane was staring directly at the screen, but it appeared she stared through the screen and into the control room. How could she know he was there, wondered Max?

“Do you think she senses you’re here?”

Max sighed, “Yeah, I do.”

It wasn’t just Jane sensing Max was there, as if she had some psychic ability. The girl was special, but there was more to it than her sensing him. The connection between the two went both ways. Max not only saw her looking at the camera as he stood in the control room, but he felt her looking at him. He didn’t know how, but Jane knew him more than she let on. Something about her was far too familiar. It had been since that first day, the day the escort team took her aboard the Oceanic.

“And you don’t know her?”

“No, I never saw her before Jensen’s team brought her aboard,” Max promised.

Susan hesitated before asking Max what he wanted to do. It was a tough question to ask, because she could see how concerned he was. Something had him unnerved, which was unusual for the commander she knew.

“I think I’m going to talk to her alone this time,” he suggested.

“Why?” asked Susan.

Max knew he hadn’t spoken to Jane alone, and that might keep her from sharing things if she only felt connected to him. If there was something between them, some weird connection, she might be lulled into opening up more, talking to just Max. As he wondered about Jane’s motivation, he told Susan to wait in the control room. It was time he had a chat with the houseguest.

Max walked to the side of her cell, pushing a chair up close. He punched the code to open the containment field and crossed his legs.

“Jane, let’s talk.”

Jonas walked out of his tent, a backpack slung over his shoulder, as he headed toward the outer wall of the temple structure. He was going to climb over the wall and into the mystery they were there to explore. As he got to the wall, he was surprised to see Anu standing there with a launcher in her hand. It was clear she was planning on going over the wall.

“Going at it alone?”

Anu jumped. She turned around, the launcher still in hand, aiming it at Jonas. The wide-eyed look on her face was enough to tell anyone she was surprised she wasn’t alone. Anu apologized for aiming the launcher at him.

“Well,” he asked her, “What was the plan?”

“I thought I’d get a head start,” she admitted.

Anu had thought of doing things the easy way. She’d tied climbing hooks to the end of rappelling ropes. The launcher was a surprise. It was not something Jonas knew they brought along on the expedition. Anu was the more experienced climber and had logged several hundred more hours in the mountains than Jonas, so he promised to take his cues from her.

“Just the two of us then?”

“We’re not cleared, yet. But I didn’t want to wait,” she admitted.

Jonas was in a rush to see what was on the other side and explore the cavernous prison system that they found with the drone exploration. He’d have rather gone alone, but Anu was a professional and knew what she was doing. Even more importantly, she was brave enough to push into the mountainous mystery without the weather clearing completely. They both knew if things got much worse, the team would be extracted. And they both were willing.

“Well,” he hesitated, “What are we waiting for?”

With that declaration, Anu fired the first hook into the top of the outer wall. She reloaded a second length of rope, firing the second hook into a point only feet away. Their ascent would be nearly straight up, and over a weathered, but nearly laser-smooth surface. They both nodded and began their climb.